Overall, Will and I were in Japan for only about 9 days, including the astronomy conference. I wish we could have taken some extra time after the conference to explore, but as it was I had to fly back down to Chile only two days after getting home from Japan. You can see why the percentage of time I’ve spent at home this year is abysmally low.

My main takeaway is that Japan is a great country for over-prepared type-A personalities. It’s basically a country full of Andys and needless to say, Will and I felt right at home. Except for the part where we couldn’t read any signs or menus. Character-based languages look exceedingly difficult to learn. But standing in neat orderly lines to board trains and escalators? That we can happily do.

Systems just work in Japan, and it makes me so happy. Trains run as expected. Buses show up on time. I booked a courier service for our checked luggage to be picked up at the hotel and taken to the airport two days before our flight so that we could spend the last two days on an overnight trip to a different city, and then we just left the suitcases at the front desk of the hotel with a note. I didn’t get a confirmation from anyone or any updates on the status of the suitcases, but we showed up to the pickup counter at the airport two days later and they were magically there. That would never happen in Chile, where Hamishes rule the land.

One afternoon during the trip, we found a tiny climbing/bouldering gym on the top level of a mall and learned that the Japanese climbers really love dynamic movement. At least half the climbs in the gym had some sort of jump or swing involved, which is much less common in climbing gyms in the US. A climbing podcast I listen to argues that small gyms require really creative boulder problems in order to be interesting, and that this is one reason Japanese competition climbers are so good. After seeing some incredible feats of strength and coordination from regular Japanese gym-goers at this random tiny gym, I’m inclined to agree.

I’ve already admitted that I’m not the biggest fan of Japanese food, but the culture and architecture are very fun. In Tokyo, I really enjoyed walking around the Asakusa Shrine and seeing tourists (including Japanese tourists) in rented kimonos, and the market street was fun and vibrant without being overwhelming. We also spent one evening in the digital art museum, which was immersive and interactive and generally very cool.

The second weekend we went to Kamakura to see several temples and statues, including the red torii gates of the Sasuke Inari Shrine, the Zeniarai Benten Shrine, a very muddy walk from there to the giant Buddha (Kotoku-in), the Hokokuji bamboo forest, and the tranquil Jomyo-ji temple. We also had my favorite noodles of the trip at Koga, a soba noodle shop near the giant Buddha.

That was all cool, but my favorite day (besides hiking up Fuji) was the last day of our trip. We had stayed the previous night in Kamakura and then took a train and bus down to the bottom of the miura peninsula to do a coastal hike. It’s one of those situations where the trail only really exists at low tide, and you walk on rocks and around tide pools. The landscape was stunning even with some rain oraybe especially with some rain, and we had the trail to ourselves all morning. We then spent the afternoon back in Kamakura trying tasty bites of all the street food on the main market street, which is one of Will’s favorite ways to eat dinner.

One thing that really stood out to me about Japan was the respect for public spaces. The streets and sidewalks were completely clean, even with very few trash cans around. People also don’t really eat when they’re out and about. Even if you go get ice cream, you stand or sit inside the ice cream shop and finish your treat before moving on. No one is eating on the trains, or while walking down the sidewalks, or even in subway stations. When we got street food in the tourist market area, there were signs telling us to finish our food standing right outside the shop before walking away, and we had to hand the trash directly to a person since there was no publicly available trash can. It felt like a weird system, but actually focusing on your food as you eat instead of multitasking is probably a healthier way to doing things in general.

As an Andy, Japanese culture is incredibly appealing, but I can see how it could also be stifling. Spending so much time in Chile (including living there for a few years) has made me appreciate spontaneity and a general go-with-the-flow approach more than I had before. As I have previously argued, Hamishes probably have more fun, but it’s hard to turn off being an Andy. And in a country full of fellow Andys where not having reservations and/or not showing up on time means you miss out on the experience, it wasn’t so bad to more fully embrace and demonstrate my inner eager beaver for a week.